Naval Air Command with last gasp winner defeat the Royals

In an extremely tight and hard fought contest the Naval Air won the Inter Command Competition in what turned out to be near perfect conditions last night at Burnaby Road. The decisive points came only moments before the final whistle when the well drilled forwards of the Air Command forced the ball down following a maul and drive. With the additional points kicked the final whistle sounded and the Marines were completely deflated at the final score of 17 – 14.
There had been excellent interplay between the Corps forwards and backs and in the early stages they looked capable of running away with the game but the Air Command closed the game down at every opportunity and made their slight superiority in the forwards count. A good number of ‘senior representative players’ turned out for their respective Commands which undoubtedly raised the standard of the game. Dave Pascoe the NAC Captain received the ‘Inverdale Trophy’ from John Inverdale and the ‘men of air’ now have the opportunity to take up the invitation of the French Navy to play a regional Naval side in Brest as their reward.
Condolences go out to the Corps who had played Portsmouth Command in dreadful conditions on the preceding evening, led until the final moments of the match and had come so close to retaining the Trophy.
More Photographs in the photo gallery.